Hi, as requested by some people here are some live tapes I gathered here and there on the web over the years.
Thanks to putuco, joesfk, sonic124 and all the people sharing their tapes!

Spectrum
Subterranean, London
24-Apr-1991

Lineage: AUD-Tape-WAV-FLAC Level 8
Ripped from: JVC TD-W309 Double Cassette Deck to PC with Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound Card.
AR3 Wizard to capture audio in WAV.
No EQ, nothing touched in the sound. I leave that for you if you want to improve sound. Feel free to do the improvements you want to do with the sound of this gig.

Got this tape in trade back in 1996-1998, don't remember exactly when.
Average sound. In Revolution sounds simply is pathetic but for a fan everything is appreciated. This terrible sound goes on until Call The Doctor is 1 minute or 2. The rest of the bootleg is average sound, but considering the fact that Spectrum bootlegs are really hard to find, I think it is worth. Anyway, I will upload more gigs when I find them, although I don't have a lot them.
My personal favourite is "When Tomorrow Hits". Also "Sweet Running Water" is very nice.

Free to share this bootleg and to convert it to the format you like!
I ask to seed this torrent as much as it possible!
And of course DON'T SALE THIS BOOTLEG!!! It is just for trading...
Support the band buying their official albums! I got a lot of SP3/SPZ/Spectrum official albums in original CD's! Do the same!

Lineage: AUD2-Tape-WAV-FLAC Level 8
Ripped from: JVC TD-W309 Double Cassette Deck to PC with Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound Card.
AR3 Wizard to capture audio in WAV.
No EQ, nothing touched in the sound. I leave that for you if you want to improve sound. Feel free to do the improvements you want to do with the sound of this gig.

Tape #5 received from sonic124, a friend that I met here in DIME.
This is a second generation bootleg.
Good-very good sound quality. A real good performance, with some rarities on the setlist like "Hey Man" and "That's Just Fine" from Spacemen 3. Also it is good to see a Spectrum gig with Suicide complete.
Download the sample before get torrent so you can listen the sound quality.
My favourite song is Hey Man. I also like very much Suicide!

Good things happen to those who say thank you, I must say.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am seeing that there is a lot of people only leeching my concerts and not seeding after they complete the download. Only 17 seeders when a bootleg has been snatched 93 times is just not good. This really pisses me off, so please SHARE AFTER YOU COMPLETE YOUR DOWNLOADS!!! MORE PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN THE BOOTLEG SO HAVE RESPECT!!!

Please be patient since my upload speed is a shame.
Free to share this bootleg and to convert it to the format you like! Just don't distribute it in LOSSY formats.
I ask to seed this torrent as much as it possible! At least 1-2 days!!
And of course DON'T SALE THIS BOOTLEG!!! It is just for trading/sharing!!
Support the band buying their official albums!

Hi Dreamweapon, I would be interested in these:
Sonic Boom - Live @ New York Knitting Factory 30.03.2012
Spectrum - Live @ Baltimore Sonar 24.04.09
Do you think flac files would be possible? Thanks a lot!

Meanwhile:

Spectrum
London Garage, London, UK
20-Aug-1993

Lineage: AUD-Tape-WAV-FLAC Level 8
Ripped from: JVC TD-W309 Double Cassette Deck to PC with Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound Card.
AR3 Wizard to capture audio in WAV.
No EQ, nothing touched in the sound. I leave that for you if you want to improve sound. Feel free to do the improvements you want to do with the sound of this gig.

Setlist:

Transparent Radiation
True Love Will Find You In The End
Lord I Don't Even Know My Name
Touch The Stars
Lonely Avenue
Che
Set Me Free
Sweet Running Water
When Tomorrow Hits
Revolution
How You Satisfy Me

Tape #3 received from sonic124, a friend that I met here in DIME.
This is a first generation bootleg, copied from the master of the tape, who sent the bootleg to Dave (sonic124).
Very good-excellent sound. Also a nice performance with some non-common tunes like How You Satisfy Me or Touch The Stars, one of my favourite Spectrum songs. Revolution almost-20-minute-version is very very cool.
Download the sample before get torrent so you can listen the sound quality.
My personal favourite is Touch The Stars. Revolution version is awesome, also Lonely Avenue and Che. It is a real good gig this one.

Good things happen to those who say thank you, I must say.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am seeing that there is a lot of people only leeching my concerts and not seeding after they complete the download. Only 17 seeders when a bootleg has been snatched 93 times is just not good. This really pisses me off, so please SHARE AFTER YOU COMPLETE YOUR DOWNLOADS!!! MORE PEOPLE WANT TO LISTEN THE BOOTLEG SO HAVE RESPECT!!!

Please be patient since my upload speed is a shame.
Free to share this bootleg and to convert it to the format you like! Just don't distribute it in LOSSY formats.
I ask to seed this torrent as much as it possible! At least 1-2 days!!
And of course DON'T SALE THIS BOOTLEG!!! It is just for trading...
Support the band buying their official albums!

No EQ, nothing touched in the sound. I leave that for you if you want to improve sound. Feel free to do the improvements you want to do with the sound of this gig.

Setlist:

Transparent Radiation
True Love Will Find You In The End
Lord I Don't Even Know My Name
Touch The Stars
Lonely Avenue
Che
Set Me Free
Sweet Running Water
When Tomorrow Hits
Revolution
How You Satisfy Me

Tape #3 received from sonic124, a friend that I met here in DIME.
This is a first generation bootleg, copied from the master of the tape, who sent the bootleg to Dave (sonic124).
Very good-excellent sound. Also a nice performance with some non-common tunes like How You Satisfy Me or Touch The Stars, one of my favourite Spectrum songs. Revolution almost-20-minute-version is very very cool.
Download the sample before get torrent so you can listen the sound quality.
My personal favourite is Touch The Stars. Revolution version is awesome, also Lonely Avenue and Che. It is a real good gig this one....

Thats... pretty bizarre actually. Not being familiar with what is considered the more available Spectrum bootlegs, but still: I was recently helped out Mr Niamhm from here in digitizing his original bootleg tape of this very gig. I was sure it was pretty rare!

Some technical stuff first:

Apart from splitting the full digital transfer and converting to 320kbps mp3, I have annotated each track as well as widening the stereo channel a bit just so it wasn't completely dead monoaural - there's a great, wide panorama of sound here. I applied some gentle EQ to each track, mainly mid and high with a touch of bass frequencies. Very light compression here and there. From 'When Tomorrow Hits' and onward it gets very loud so there was less I could do with those tracks. There is some notable distortion at times in the left channel during the real loud moments that there was little I could do with.

There was about a minute or so of full audio drop-out on the left channel during the beautiful outro to 'Touch The Stars', I managed to bring it up for that piece, as there was audio there just greatly reduced in volume. Close listening will spot it. Better though I think than suddenly just losing one channel completely.

Anyway, nevermind that muso babble - this is a fucking awesome gig!!

I'm really impressed - I've actually heard very little in the way of the Spectrum live stuff to be honest. Certainly nothing from that era. 'Revolution' is a beast...

Oh yeah, you'll know most tracks have at least a minute of 'tuning-up' time -sometimes longer. I've left those at the end of each track so once you're there you can skip forward and just get the beginning of the next. Aye, some of them are pretty lengthy right enough!

In the end though, the quality of recording on the tape was pretty amazing to start with. Just brought it up a bit. Wish there was some Spz 1993 shows as good as that out there...

Oh my. I've reached Touch the Stars, and this 1993 Garage gig is uttery wonderful so far! Some perfect song choices beautifully and subtly played, and the organ sound is adorable. Does anybody know who was playing in Spectrum at this point?

plastic37 wrote:I taped a Spectrum gig at The Wherehouse, Derby, Summer 1993.
If it isn't already 'outthere' (i traded it at the time) I am happy to rip it.

jadams501 wrote:Thanks to everyone who posted shows. The only live Spectrum I had was the Live Chronicles, which are great to have but aren't really classic concert boots. Thrilled to get the chance to hear these.

I remember reading about the Derby Wherehouse gig on a flyer - it was fairly soon after Spz played there (my first Spz gig in fact - they were supported by Miranda Sex Garden)

What's the deal about the Live Chronicles CDs in terms of quality and availability?

Dreamweapon wrote:What's the deal about the Live Chronicles CDs in terms of quality and availability?

I got the "Japan Editions" of both volumes for cheap on Amazon a few years back. The quality is mixed -- some of the radio sessions cut off the end of the songs (which probably couldn't have been fixed) and some of the tracks have long stretches of incidental noise at the beginning or end (which could have been fixed fairly easily) but overall it's at least competitive with the standards of 90s boots, and easy to fix in Itunes. The music itself is good, and the packaging is really nice (the yellow theme from Forever Alien crossed with the geometric stuff from the Spectrum LP) -- definitely worth picking up for any Sonic Boom fan.

Here is another great one from 1994. Thanks again to sonic124 and putuco!
See putuco's notes below:

Spectrum
London Venue, London, UK
14-Oct-1994

Lineage: AUD-Tape-WAV-FLAC Level 8
Ripped from: JVC TD-W309 Double Cassette Deck to PC with Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sound Card.
AR3 Wizard to capture audio in WAV.
No EQ, nothing touched in the sound. I leave that for you if you want to improve sound. Feel free to do the improvements you want to do with the sound of this gig.

Setlist:

I Know They Say
True Love Will Find You In The End
Take Your Time
Transparent Radiation
Che
Mary Anne
When Tomorrow Hits
Revolution (Part 1)
Revolution (Part 2)
Suicide

Tape #2 received from sonic124, a friend that I met here in DIME.
This is a first generation bootleg, copied from the master of the tape, who sent the bootleg to Dave (sonic124).
Very good-excellent sound. If anyone have more info about the venue of this gig (alphastone probably knows something) please post a comment with the additional information.
Download the sample before get torrent so you can listen the sound quality.
My personal favourite is True Love Will Find You In The End. Suicide also is on a great but short version.

My memory may be playing tricks on me but I think the line-up for the 93 Garage gig was
PK
Mike Stout on bass
Tony from the Field Trip on drums
And my good self on guitar.
I do remember some thieving toerag nicking some live tapes from my gig bag as I was packing away.
Including the Cov gig.

You are indeed correct. August 1993 with The Field Trip supporting and their drummer doubling up and playing with Spectrum too. I was at that show. Man Spectrum were just amazing back then. An underrated tour de force of true sonic power.

The guitarist on the recording from The Venue was Scott Riley of course. Another superb player. I was at that show too. I recall the curious sight of Pete sitting in the dressing room talking to support band LaBradford, with Josh 'Robert' Hampson' of Loop in the room too. I never thought I'd see those 2 guys together.

I am pretty sure I am right in saying that you are the only musician to have played in both Spectrum and Spiritualized Kev! Quite a claim I reckon!

I am pretty sure I am right in saying that you are the only musician to have played in both Spectrum and Spiritualized Kev! Quite a claim I reckon!

What about Will Carruthers?!

Oops. Yup, indeed. No idea how that escaped me!

I saw Spectrum supporting My Bloody Valentine in December 91, then at Subterrania in October 92. I think Richard Formby was still on board for the 1st of those. Maybe that 2nd one in 92 was with you Kev? Phil Parfitt had his Psychotropic Variations as support that night. Ring any bells?

Probably worth asking what you are up to now? I had a big reunion with Melomania a couple of months ago and realised I had totally forgotten what a guitar masterclass most of that record is. Massively underrated... Mind you so are Will's superb Freelovebabies albums and you played on those too!

I love Melomania and still listen to it alot, its a wonderful record, and you are right, massively underated. I'm still hoping that one day the rumoured box set will come out.

Yes, massive high fives to Kevin Cowen who has played in pretty much all my favourite bands Darkside, Spectrum, Spiritualized and Freelove babies, basically all my favourite music. Its a shame you've never been in Slipstream as that would about cover it!

I saw Spectrum in London sometime between 1994 - 96 at either the Garage or The Venue. Anyone know which it was? I remember them playing Undo The Taboo, took them 3 attempts to get it to Sonic's satisfaction! I also know it was a Saturday as I went to see Ozric Tentacles and Banco de Gaia the night before in the Forum.

sunray wrote:I saw Spectrum in London sometime between 1994 - 96 at either the Garage or The Venue. Anyone know which it was? I remember them playing Undo The Taboo, took them 3 attempts to get it to Sonic's satisfaction!

That sounds very much like the Garage gig from 1995. I remember it well...

Pete had a very young version of Spectrum. They looked rather scared of him, and who can blame them, because when they did something he didn't like, he would stop the song and glower at them, rather than tell them what they'd done wrong. This often happened more than once during an attempt at a song. And the between song gaps were enormous - I know this is a common feature of Pete's gigs, and it is often endearing, but on this occasion...

Added to which, the staff at the Garage were desperate to end the hugely-overrunning set so that they could set up for the following indie disco, to the extent that they were waving torches in Pete's face throughout Suicide. Not that he paid them any attention! And when Spectrum finally finished, the DJ stuck on a Stereolab track and what seemed like twice the volume that the band had been playing at.

Still an OK gig. I bought the last Spectrum jacket, like this one modelled by Pete:

Thanks for the kind comments.
You're right Runcible. I was confusing the Garage and the Subterrainia.
And Oct 92 makes sense.
As for what I'm up to now - still practicing for hours a day, but purely for my own amusement for the time being.
Some good friends and inspirations have sadly departed in recent times.
KC